


A Life on the Road

by Edonohana



Category: The Long Walk - Richard Bachman, The Stand - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-24 08:10:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20702726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: McVries wasn’t sure when the plague had started.





	A Life on the Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ninety6tears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninety6tears/gifts).

McVries wasn’t sure when the plague had started. Hadn’t someone sneezed before the Walk, while he was sitting down for the second-to-last time in his life? Or had his knowledge of what was happening now washed backward over his memories like a dark receding tide?

It didn’t matter, of course. Just like the questions they were arguing over now didn’t matter. Who’d died of the plague and who’d died of the Walk. Who had the plague now and who was just normally sick. If the soldiers who’d caught it and been taken away, switched out for an ever-decreasing number of healthy soldiers, would die. If the ever-thinning crowds of onlookers (how long had it been since they’d passed _any_ crowds?) were because they were trying to keep the townspeople from catching it from the Walkers and the soldiers, or because the townspeople already had it. 

They were all dead and dying anyway, the Walkers and the soldiers, the mothers and fathers and girlfriends, whether of the plague or a bullet or exhaustion or old age. 

“Scramm had it,” Garraty was saying. 

Baker shook his head, sniffling. “Scramm had pneumonia.” 

“His neck was all puffed up and purple,” said Garraty. “Pneumonia wouldn’t do that.”

“Maybe it’s a new kind of pneumonia,” Stebbins said. "They make things like that in the weapons labs."

Baker gave a loud wet sneeze that turned into a coughing fit that bent him double. He stumbled, then staggered, nearly pitching forward. Garraty reached out and steadied him. 

“No Musketeers,” McVries said, though he knew it was as pointless as the Walk itself. Garraty would keep on being a Musketeer till the end, all by himself. When McVries sat down to die, Garraty would try and fail to pull him up, even knowing that he’d sacrifice his own life if he succeeded by some miracle of some God-of-the-Walk that this bloody sacrifice had called into existence. 

Garraty shot him a guilty look and released Baker’s shoulder, but he’d done enough: Baker spat, gasped, and caught his breath again. His breath rattled in his chest, but he regained his balance and walked on. 

It was that guilty look that got to McVries, more than the action itself. Garraty cared what McVries thought of him, even now that they were all dying and maybe the whole world was dying (but not before the Walk was done, of course. _They_ would make sure of that.)

McVries had the irrational desire to give Garraty some little gift, some fragment of peace or comfort or escape. But he’d never wrapped a present right in his life, and what came out was “Changed your mind about the hand job?”

They were all so exhausted and hurt, it seemed impossible that they could be hurt more. But pain was the world’s one inexhaustible resource. Garraty jerked back like he’d been stung, which was just about right since that ugly wrapping paper had hid a hornet’s nest. 

“Fuck you,” Garraty said, then, astonishingly, let out a hoarse laugh. “Not like that.”

McVries laughed too, his heart inexplicably lightening. “We’ll make a man of you yet.”

And just like that, he was falling asleep. The stabbing agony in his feet, the burning in his spine, the wood-chopping pain in his head, all of it faded. The crushing exhaustion that was worse than any pain became a delight, for it was what would help him sink into the best sleep he’d ever have. He’d sleep on his feet, yes, and when someone woke him, he’d sit down wherever he was and take his final rest there.

He dreamed that his feet didn’t hurt. That was how he knew it was a dream. In reality, it was impossible for him to stand upright and be supported by feet that didn’t hurt, legs that didn’t threaten to buckle at every step, a back that didn’t call attention to itself, and a body that wasn’t exhaustion made flesh.

He couldn’t decide if it was a good dream or a cruel one. It was the end of it that would determine that, he supposed: good if it ended in his death without ever waking, cruel if he woke up first. 

Garraty was with him, and Stebbins. They stood in a field of corn under a blue sky, looking years younger, like they had when they’d just begun to walk. The sun was shining. Stebbins held a jelly sandwich in one hand. McVries knew, as one knew things in dreams, that they were with him and not, that they saw each other without quite being in the same space.

“Welcome, boys.” 

The voice was old and cracked. A woman’s voice. For all the talk of girls and girlfriends, for all the women they’d seen along the way, the voice came as a shock. It was as if he’d forgotten that women existed. And though it was a dream, her voice was the most real thing he’d ever heard. 

The speaker was a very old black woman, sitting on a wooden bench on the porch of a shack that looked just about as old as she did. “They call me Mother Abagail.”

_They_, McVries thought. He couldn’t imagine calling anyone “Mother,” not even his own.

“Come on up,” Abagail said. She patted the bench. “Have a seat. I made you some lemonade.”

Garraty walked up, hesitant but trusting. His corn-colored hair was bright in the sunlight. Strands drifted like corn silk in the light breeze. McVries had forgotten that it was like that, after all the time seeing it flattened and darkened with rain and sweat. An incredulous smile brightened Garraty’s face as he sat down beside Abagail. Wonderingly, he touched the bench, then the glass of lemonade. The water drops beaded on its side joined and ran down his fingers.

That seat at her side would also fit McVries, he knew, and Stebbins as well; the single glass of lemonade would be as frosty and soothing going down their throats as it was going down Garraty’s. The triple vision should have been confusing, but it felt natural: everyone made their own choices all at once, like a hundred boys walking down a road, all for their own reasons that were at their core the same reason.

It was beautiful and horrifying to watch Garraty sit and drink. He was so happy, but it was only a dream. When he awoke, the blow that reality would strike him would be a knife in his guts.

To Stebbins, she said, “Boy, that man’s not your father. Your true father’s the man who loves you, not the man who offers you up as a sacrifice to the dark.”

“You believe in the Bible,” Stebbins said. “I know it. So what about Abraham? He offered up Isaac, his first-born son, as a blood sacrifice.”

Abagail’s wrinkled face creased even more, grooved everywhere like a walnut. “That’s a hard story. Maybe the hardest. But it was for a greater purpose. And, remember, God stayed his hand.”

“Abraham still raised the knife to his son,” Stebbins said. He took a step back, receding into the corn. 

Abagail gave a sigh, watching him go. Then she patted Garraty’s arm. “Come up and see me some time. You’ve been on a long hard road. I’d dearly love to feed you up, child.”

Garraty set down the empty glass, then belched. He flushed and muttered “Sorry.” 

Abagail gave a fond chuckle. She liked Garraty, McVries could see that. The lemonade was a gift, not a bribe. And yet there was something about her that was strong and hard and cold as steel, for all that she looked like a brisk wind would blow her away. If she'd been on the Walk, McVries thought, she'd have been a Musketeer, and gone on being one till the end. She'd have finished it the last one standing, with a trail of corpses left behind her. And she'd have sincerely wept over every one.

“What about everyone else?" Garraty asked. "The Walkers who aren’t here?”

“They’ve gone on to their rest, or they will very soon," she replied. "Their job is done. But yours, child, yours is just beginning.”

“What job?”

“Why, to stop the dark man,” she said. “The man who set you walking. You’ve met some of his minions, and you’ve seen his work.”

“The Walk,” whispered Garraty. He looked at his empty glass, as if his throat had gone suddenly dry. 

“Will you join those fighting to make sure there’s never another?” 

Garraty opened his mouth, then closed it. He indicated McVries, then the shadow in the corn that was Stebbins. “What about them?”

“You’re a good boy, Ray,” Abagail said. “You’ve got love in your heart. But can’t no one choose for another. Where they go is where their own feet lead them.”

And then she too was looking straight at McVries. Her eyes were a little cloudy, but that was just on the surface: that old lady _saw_. “What’ll it be, son? Sit down in the electric chair you built for yourself, for crimes that you yourself judged, and buckle those straps across your chest? Or stand up and give your friend a shoulder to lean on?”

Anger flared in him, more so because her words had an uncomfortable amount of truth. But he spoke with uncharacteristic care, for Garraty had started out of his comfortable seat and stood on the edge of the porch, wavering. “I think maybe the choice isn’t just you or the highway. And I’m not so sure we wouldn’t get the highway again even if we did go to you.”

She flinched a little, and he knew he’d struck home to her as surely as she had to him. 

Not knowing exactly where the words were coming from, but knowing their power, he asked, “Can you promise you’d never send us on a walk to our death?”

A shadow passed over her face. “I don’t send anybody anywhere. But I can’t promise that God won’t give me any messages. If it’s His will that you walk again, He’ll let you know, one way or another. But whether you put on your shoes and walk with Him, well, that’s up to you.”

As Abagail spoke, the shadow spread. Raising her voice, she said, “If you want to see me, I’m in Polk County, Nebraska. Nebraska!”

The shadow swallowed the corn. It swallowed the shack, and the porch. It swallowed the woman and the boys. 

It spat out the boys into a room like nothing McVries had ever seen before. It was a hotel room, he supposed: it had that unmistakable air of a place where no one had ever made a home. But it was _huge._ A suite, he realized, not that he’d ever been in one. It had several rooms, a bedroom and living room and kitchen and bathroom, all lavish and brightly lit. One window was completely made of glass, and a neon city glowed below. 

“Have a seat, boys!” 

This voice was a man’s, a man in the prime of life. His eyes twinkled with humor and he had a big inviting smile. He looked like the kind of man who’d give out the prize on the old TV shows McVries had heard stories about, the ones where the losers didn’t die. He had a button pinned to each lapel of his denim jacket, one showing a running man in crosshairs, and one reading “Door Number Three” over the silhouette of a goat.

He was sprawled casually in a leather armchair, one hand gesturing toward a leather sofa that looked just as inviting as that glass of lemonade. He wore cowboy boots that had seen one hell of a lot of walking, but the sort where you could sit down any time you liked: they were battered but whole. “The name’s Flagg. I already know yours. This is Las Vegas—a long walk from where you are, so to speak.”

He laughed. None of the boys did. 

“Refreshments?” Flagg opened a minibar, releasing a cloud of cold air and revealing six-packs of beer, bottles of water and juice, mini-bottles of whiskey and vodka and gin, and a plate of sliced watermelon. "Anything you want."

Once again, McVries knew that Flagg was speaking to them all separately and yet together. He saw Garraty’s longing look focus on the watermelon, and Stebbins’ on Flagg’s face.

“The old woman was half-right,” Flagg said to Stebbins with a rueful shrug. “You _could_ do better for a dad. But she was offering you a finger-wagging graybeard perched on a cloud—a doddering, tottering figment of your imagination. Me, I’ve always wanted a son. A boy I could take fishing and play catch with. Is that too corny?”

Stebbins swallowed. “No.”

“A boy I could teach to hunt. Train up to inherit my business, so to speak.” He let out a startling giggle, making McVries rock back. “My kingdom.”

Stebbins took a step forward, then stopped. “Why didn’t you come for me before?”

“I didn’t know about you till now. Comes of not being blood-related. _I’d_ never father bastards and abandon them.” Flagg stood up, opening his arms wide. “The Major was a fool. He had the best thing any man could want and he threw it away. He’s _not_ your father. But I could be. All you have to do is say yes.”

“Yes,” Stebbins breathed, and stepped into those waiting arms. They closed around him like a bear trap. The jelly sandwich fell from his hand. Flagg toed it away with a flick of his boot tip. 

And while McVries still saw Flagg holding Stebbins tight, he also saw Flagg sitting back in his chair, offering Garraty a dripping wedge of pink melon. 

“I saw you boys fighting over the watermelon.” Flagg clicked his tongue against his teeth, his teeth like bright white tombstones. “That’s what _they_ reduced you to. A shame. You’re worth so much more than that. You come to me, Ray. You and your buddies. I’d give you work you can be proud of. I’d give you a purpose. Come to me, and you’ll never have to fight for scraps.”

“No,” Garraty said slowly. “No, we weren’t fighting. We shared. Everyone got some.”

“Fighting the soldiers to get to it, I meant,” said Flagg. But McVries knew he was covering, and he saw that Garraty knew it too. Flagg had seen or known a lot, but not everything. He’d just assumed the boys had fought each other for what they’d gotten.

And then (at the same time) Flagg spoke to McVries. “Take a seat! Rest those poor sore feet of yours.”

McVries, uncertain what he’d be accepting if he did, stayed where he was. “That all you got for me?”

“Isn’t that enough?” Flagg responded pleasantly. “I seem to recall a time when you intended to give your life for ten seconds of sitting down on a cold wet road.”

McVries shrugged. “My feet are fine now.”

“Yes. I gave you that. But it’s not real yet, you know.” 

Flagg snapped his fingers. A sudden flare of agony almost knocked McVries to the floor—_would_ have knocked him down if it hadn’t been so brief. It was the pain he’d felt when he’d fallen asleep, the pain he hadn’t realized he’d gotten used to: stabbing pain in his feet like he was walking barefoot on razor blades, searing agony in his back, a blinding headache, cramps and nausea, and an exhaustion so intense that it was worse than any of the rest. Just that, and nothing more.

In less than the time it took him to blink, it was gone. He stood trembling and covered in cold sweat, and physically completely fine.

“I’m so sorry,” Flagg said, but McVries thought he saw a spark of manic glee in his eyes. “Terrible. But I’m not the one who did that to you, you know. I’m the one who took it away for as long as I could. I’ll take it away forever if you come to me. You’ll sit all day in a comfortable chair in a room with the temperature set exactly how you want it, and everything you want within reach of your hand.”

“That sounds like a free lunch. What do I have to give you?”

“A little easy work. A desk job, so to speak. Just some button-pushing. Nothing that requires you to get up close and personal.” The spark in Flagg’s eyes grew, became a fireball. “Isn’t that what you really want, Pete? I can give it to you. This whole pointless, meaningless world, the people scurrying like ants: don’t you want to burn it all down, and yourself with it? Don’t you?” 

_Don’t you?_

“Second warning!”

It was the Major’s voice.

McVries jerked awake with a gasp. It was dawn. The air was freezing and an icy drizzle was falling, chilling him to the bone. He and Garraty and Stebbins had somehow all fallen against each other and had been sleepwalking for God knows how long. Garraty’s head was on his shoulder. They broke apart, stumbling forward, walking on razors. But not fast enough, apparently.

“Third—” The Major gave a sudden, violent sneeze. “Third warning!”

He raised his gun and leveled it on the boys. They were still walking, now half-running. McVries was sure it had been at the required pace ever since their second warning. But he felt no surprise that the Major was going to kill them anyway. The game was rigged. It always had been. 

The Major shifted his aim slightly, pointing the gun at Stebbins. His finger moved to the trigger. 

“You can’t do that!” Stebbins screamed. 

But he could, of course. He would.

A harsh caw split the air. A crow flew out of a tree, its black wings buffeting the Major’s face just as he fired. The gunshot cracked, but nobody fell. The crow swooped up, then down again, pecking viciously. The Major gave a hoarse scream as one lens of his reflective glasses shattered. Bloody shards fell, revealing a wet red hole.

The crow flew upward with a triumphant caw, spiraling away into the gunmetal sky.

Stebbins ran forward as the Major doubled over, clutching at his eye, sneezing and screaming at the same time. He snatched the gun from the Major’s hand and shot him. The Major fell over at the first shot. His body landed with a dull thud, not the crash of a tree falling. It sounded like something of no importance, a sack of mishandled cement.

Stebbins stood over his body, methodically shooting him in the head and back until the gun clicked empty. He drew back his foot, as if to give him a kick in the ribs, then set it down again and just stood over him.

_Stood_ over him. Stebbins had stopped walking. And nobody had shot him. Nobody had even warned him.

McVries looked around. He and Garraty were still walking. The bodies of boys and soldiers were scattered across the road, and more soldiers lay dead in stationary half-tracks. 

Only one half-track was still moving, and its driver was slumped over the steering wheel. Another soldier stood on it, his rifle dangling from one hand. His throat was purple and swollen. He choked, his hands flying to his throat, then fell out of the half-track. There was a dull crack as he landed face-down. 

The half-track went off the road, snapping small trees and crushing bushes. It was finally stopped by a tight grove of taller trees. The motor kept on grinding away as the wheels and treads spun in place. One of the trees swayed, bent, then broke with a loud crack and fell on top of it. All noise and movement stopped abruptly, except for the rustling of the leaves. And then even that died away.

“Pete.” Garraty stepped in front of him, bringing him to a halt. “It’s over. We can stop walking.”

They stood like that, Garraty’s hands on his shoulders and McVries’ limp at his sides, for what felt like an eternity. Garraty’s idea that they could live the equivalent of an entire lifetime on the road came back to him suddenly, and then he realized that they didn’t have to. Their lives had been given back to them.

Whatever sort of lives they could have now, given the strong chance that everyone they knew was dead, civilization had ended, and some sort of mystical war was brewing between the old woman and the dark man. A harsh laugh tore through his throat. 

“I’m off,” Stebbins said. He tossed the gun down on top of the Major’s corpse and gave them a cheerful wave. 

“Where to?” asked Garraty, though he sounded like he already knew.

“Las Vegas, of course,” said Stebbins.

“So it was real,” McVries heard himself say. “Real. A real dream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but—” 

Garraty grabbed him and shook him roughly. “Stop it.”

McVries stopped, and gulped down a laugh that would have been far too close to hysteria. 

Impatiently, Stebbins said, “You guys coming?”

“Maybe later,” McVries said. “Are you—you’re not _walking!_”

For a moment he thought Stebbins _was_. He looked as unstoppable as he had when they’d started. But the boy shook his head. “He was just kidding about that. I’ll take a half-track.”

He climbed into one that was stopped by the side of the road, heaved a soldier’s corpse out of it, and settled into the driver’s seat. “Comfy. It’s nice to be in here instead of out there. Well, I’ll be seeing you. Maybe.”

They stood watching him as he started it up and drove down the road. As the rumbling faded into the distance, McVries thought he heard a crow caw.

“We could sit down,” Garraty said, as if he’d only just realized it. He looked wonderingly down at the muddy, blood-spattered ground. 

It was the ground that McVries had planned to sit down on to die. 

He still could. He was getting the distinct impression that nobody who was alive now was going to die of the plague, and nobody was left to shoot him. But if he sat down and didn’t move, he was so worn down that he’d probably get for-real pneumonia in the cold and wet. Hell, he had enough open blisters that he might get an infection and die of that. And if all else failed, well, there were plenty of guns around, just waiting to be picked up.

But then again, there was Garraty. He wouldn’t stand for McVries picking up a gun. And if they stayed here on this muddy track, whatever one got, the other would too.

“Not here. Once we sit down, we won’t get up for a while.” He seized Garraty’s wrists and spun him around, laughing. “We’ll find a sultan’s palace, Ray, and stretch out on silken cushions while dancing girls drop peeled grapes into our mouths.”

Soberly, Garraty said, “I think the dancing girls are all dead. Look.” He pointed at the handful of houses that were visible through the trees. “No one came out.”

More than anything else, that convinced McVries that the whole world had been decimated. No one would let a little rain stop them from rushing out to gawk at a Long Walk passing right in front of their house.

They stepped off the road and started through the trees. McVries hoped so hard that Garraty wouldn’t bring up the dreams, visions, whatever they were—later, later they could talk about it—that it took up all the space in his head. He had no room for words. 

They were nearly at the front yard of the closest house when Garraty said, “I didn’t even notice when we left the road. After all that time that it looked like the Promised Land.”

“I didn’t either.”

The reality of it was starting to sink in now. The Long Walk was over, and this time, for the first time, there had been three survivors. Maybe for the first time there’d been _any_ survivors. Maybe there’d never be another one. McVries shied away from thinking of the old woman’s words on that. He couldn’t think about the bigger picture. It was too vast, too terrifying. In the bigger picture, they were all flies that existed only to be swatted. In the smaller picture, the snapshot, they had a house to break into, food to find and feet to rest.

“I don’t know, Ray,” McVries said. “This doesn’t quite look like a peeled-grape house.”

“Peeled-prune, more like,” said Garraty. He glanced around. “No car. That could be good.”

It took McVries a moment to understand what he meant: no car meant that someone had driven it away, which with luck meant there wouldn’t be any corpses inside. “Here’s hoping.”

The door was unlocked, which McVries thought vaguely wasn’t uncommon in these parts. Pale light came in through the windows, illuminating a country kitchen. Apparently they’d actually come in through the back door. 

Mostly-finished bottles of cold medicine and cough syrup, along with used glasses, stood on the counter under a small medicine cabinet. McVries scooped up everything in the cabinet and dumped it on the kitchen table, then sat down in a hard wooden chair. 

Forget sex, _that_ was the most exquisite pleasure of his life. He was dizzy with it. It was only when Garraty put his own armful of stuff on the table and then sat down beside him that McVries remembered that anything but his own relief even existed in the universe. 

Garraty closed his eyes and groaned, sounding just like McVries felt. McVries gave him his moment while he sorted through the stuff on the table. While he’d gone to the medicine cabinet, Garraty had gone to the fridge. There was a jug of root beer, a big hunk of cheese, a packet of sliced salami, and a quarter of a chocolate cake. 

“A cake,” McVries said. 

Garraty nodded. “Homemade, I think.”

“A _cake_.” It seemed absolutely unreal that they lived in a world where cake existed. McVries put out his hand and touched the root beer. It wasn’t cold, but it was cool. The power couldn’t have gone off too long ago.

“If you don’t want it…” Garraty began, wrapping his arms around the cake protectively.

“Give me that,” McVries said, laughing. 

They pulled it apart with their hands, since neither of them wanted to get up and fetch a knife, let alone plates. It was so moist and rich that McVries wondered idly if they’d make themselves sick, then decided he didn’t care. But he didn’t feel nauseated or bloated, not even after they’d finished off all the salami and half the cheese, trading the jug of root beer back and forth. He felt… good. Solid. A part of things, not a ghost three-quarters dead. 

Garraty leaned over, his chair tilting precariously, to reach a dishcloth dangling on the wall, which they used to wipe their hands. Only then did he seem to notice the medical supplies. He picked up a bottle of disinfectant, then set it down with a wince. “I guess we have to.”

McVries, remembering his plan to sit down and die of blood poisoning from infected blisters, said, “Yeah. I’ll go first if you want.”

“Let’s do it together,” said Garraty. “I’ll feel bad if I see you crying all by yourself.”

“_You’ll_ be crying all by yourself.” 

In the end, they both cried, and the floor beneath the table was littered with bloody cotton. But both their feet and ankles were clean and swathed in white gauze, even if little red spots showed through in some places. Incredible as it was, McVries didn’t think they’d done any permanent damage. Glancing around the kitchen, he thought they’d be walking again long before the food ran out.

“About Mother Abagail,” Garraty said.

McVries jumped like he’d been given a warning. He licked his lips. “What about her?”

“What she said. That I—we—had a job. That we could stop the Walk from ever happening again.”

“There is no Walk!” McVries’ voice rose shrilly. “The Major’s dead! Everyone’s dead!”

“Flagg isn’t.”

Pain stabbed through the soles of McVries’ feet, bad enough to make him gasp. His vision blurred. How absurd, that he’d made it all the way through the Long Walk, and was going to faint now—

“Hey. Hey, Pete. You need to lie down…?”

Garraty’s face came back into focus. He had McVries by the shoulders again, holding him up. 

McVries straightened, shaking him off. “No. I mean, yeah, soon, but I’m not passing out this second.” He rubbed his hand over his face. All his skin felt new and painful, like a layer had been burned off. “You want to go to her?”

“Part of me,” Garraty said in a low voice. “Part of me does. You?”

McVries had to take a gulp of root beer before he could say, “Part of me wants to go to _him_.”

He thought Garraty would be disgusted, but he just sighed. “I did too, for a while. On the Walk. Burn it all down… Sure, why not? Only the Walk isn’t just the Major and the soldiers. It’s you. Me. Baker. Scramm. Olson. Parker. Stebbins. Barkovitch.” 

“Oh, fuck Barkovitch. He can burn,” McVries said, but his heart wasn’t in it and he knew Garraty could hear it. Garraty knew him better now than anyone had ever known him. Garraty knew him down through the skin and into the bone. 

“We lived…” Garraty trailed off. His eyelids were swollen, and his weariness was visible in his sagging body. He sounded like he was fighting sleep as he said, “We lived. Is it wrong to want to keep on living?”

“No.” The Walk hadn’t taught McVries anything he’d wanted to learn, the Walk had blasted everything he’d ever known out of his head, but if there was one thing he'd learned from it, it was that. “No, it isn’t.”

Garraty yawned so hugely that McVries heard the bones of his jaw pop. “Let’s lie down.”

It was almost impossible to force themselves to their feet, and when they did, the pain nearly doubled McVries over. Garraty gave a short, sharp cry, then sucked in his breath. They held each other up as they staggered out of the kitchen, through the temptation of the living room and its sofa (which wasn’t big enough for two, though, or else they’d have stopped there) and into the first bedroom they saw.

It didn’t contain corpses, and it did contain a big bed. Garraty had the sense to yank aside the covers. They fell on it—it was a huge effort to lift up his legs, and he heard Garraty groan as he did the same—and then they were lying down at last with their heads on the softest pillows the world had ever made. McVries tugged the covers over them both, and then they were even warm.

They lay still, too exhausted to quite relax. McVries would have thought Garraty was asleep, except he knew the patterns of his sleep and waking too well by now. The rainy-day light was gray and somehow comforting, neither the bright sunshine of Nebraska nor the brighter neon of Las Vegas.

Garraty must have been thinking the same thing, because he asked, “What’s the farthest away from Las Vegas _and_ Nebraska that you can get without ending up in Canada?” 

“What’s wrong with Canada?”

“Too cold.”

“Back to Maine,” McVries said. 

“I’d rather not,” Garraty said slowly. “Everyone I know is dead. And the Walk was there. And Maine's cold, too.”

“How about Australia?” McVries suggested. “Just a short swim, and then it’ll be kangaroos and koalas and summer for Christmas.”

Garraty punched his arm. “Would you settle for North Carolina?”

“What’s there?” 

Garraty shrugged. “It’s warmer than Maine, but across the country from Nevada. They put mustard on barbecue. That’s about all I know.”

“Well, they’re barbarians, then.”

“They’re all dead, though.”

McVries laughed. “Sure. North Carolina it is.”

He felt Garraty move a little, re-settling himself. His hair brushed against McVries’ arm, which he had flung over his head. 

McVries’ mind spun like a wheel, throwing up spatters of mud and bits of flowers. Maybe it was a queer thing, two boys in a bed. Maybe queer didn’t matter anymore. Maybe they’d get pulled into Flagg and Abagail’s war no matter where they went and what they wanted. 

Maybe the death instinct was too strong, stronger than the life instinct, and he’d live a little while and then find some other way to die. Wasn’t that why they’d all volunteered, anyway? Wasn’t that why the Long Walk existed? Wasn’t that why the plague had happened, someone getting a little too clever with some tiny vial in a weapons lab? 

What did it mean that they only lived because almost everyone else had died?

On the Walk, sometimes McVries had thought he’d trade his life for one minute of sitting down. Sometimes he’d thought he’d trade his death for one minute of holding Garraty.

“Ray?” he whispered.

“Yeah, Pete?” Garraty’s voice was thick, half-asleep.

McVries turned over, moving into Garraty. He felt Garraty freeze, then slowly relax.

McVries opened his mouth to make some joke, some jab at a weak spot to push him away. What came out instead was “Okay?”

“Yeah.” Garraty sounded more awake now. He put his arm around McVries. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

What it meant—what anything meant—could wait, McVries supposed. They’d held each other up on the road, and they were holding each other still.


End file.
